12.25.2008

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We had a great time over here. Ella was really excited to see all the presents that Santa brought her. Sam had a fun time playing with all the wrapping.

12.23.2008

Since we were all snowed in last weekend Ella and Zan decided to put together our gingerbread house. It was the first time we've put one together and it turned out really well. Ella kept wanting to eat all the candies, but I don't blame her. They were really good.

Sam is almost able to climb over the ottoman that we have blocking the stairs. We have a gate at the bottom, but there are a couple stairs before that he will climb up and then fall down. I think I'm going to need to teach him how to go down the stairs backwards instead of just trying to walk down them and of course that doesn't work.

12.13.2008

Sorry about neglecting the blog, but there really hasn't been much going on. I've been busy trying to get everything ready for Christmas. I'm done purchasing all gifts and have just started making some of the sugar cookies. We have a "Cookies & Carols" at Ella's preschool on Tuesday. It will be fun to see the kids singing. I'll try to get some video.

As of Thursday Sammy has been saying "mama" to me. He's said it before but just as a general word. Now he's using it to get my attention. Too cute!!

12.03.2008

11.30.2008

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We all had a really good time. This year we decided to break tradition and go up to Breezy Point instead of Lutsen. The kids had the most fun swimming in the pool and playing down by the lake.

Ella and I took a hike on Wednesday with Kevin, Carol and Damien. We hiked a trail up to a fire tower. We climbed all the way to the top. Unfortunately the top was locked so we couldn't get into the tower top. Oh well, we got up really high! There was ice on the lake and we "skated around near the shore". Ella picked a whole lot of seashells for the aquarium here at home.

Sammy after a nap. Notice the nice hair!

We got home on Saturday and after we had lunch we went to cut down the Christmas tree. That evening Ella helped us decorate it. Sam has been having a lot of fun pulling off all the ornaments. I think it will be a long 4 weeks.

When Romeo was at the kennel we decided to have him groomed while he was there. Oh, they did a great job and I think I'll be bringing him there a couple times a year instead of doing it myself!!

11.20.2008

I've been very busy making things the past few days. I dug out my cake decorating/making supplies and made a birthday cake for Zan. This one he will bring to work tomorrow. Keep in mind this is the first cake I've decorated in many years. The hardest part was finding the right frosting, which I finally got after 3 tries.

Next project is barrette's for Ella. I was at Target the other day and saw these really cute barrette's. They were $10 for two!!! You've got to be kidding me. I wouldn't even let her wear those to school because they might get lost. So I got the supplies I needed and made my own at less than $.50 each. They are so easy to make and I can make them so they don't slide off. Very cute!! I have enough stuff to make 100! Here's a couple that I made in 5 minutes.

11.16.2008

Auntie Jill was nice enough to give Ella a puppy dog shirt when she was little. Well Sammy found the shirt one day and he wanted to wear it too! :) It looks very cute on him as well.

Sam has also started playing with the electronics. We had to buy a childproofing thing so he can't push the buttons on the TV. Although it was very funny hearing Ella exclaim, "Sam is pushing my buttons!" He will also turn on the dvd player and push the open button to get the dvd out. They are such smart little people.

11.14.2008

After picking through the candy bowl for quite some time I told Ella to hurry up. She looks at me and says, "There isn't anything interesting." I guess she was looking for a new kind of candy. Silly girl.

11.13.2008

There isn't much new going on around here. Our snowman is mostly melted because of the rain. Ella has her school pictures tomorrow morning. We celebrated great-grandma's 88th birthday on Sunday. It's been a pretty uneventful week, which isn't always bad.

11.07.2008

We started out the week in t-shirts playing at the park and ended up in snow pants making snowmen by the end of the week. Only in Minnesota I guess. I was very surprised by the almost 3 inches of snow we woke up to this morning. It was very good snowman making snow though.

Ella had a birthday party for one of her friends last Saturday. It was at a place called P.ump it U.p Par.ty. They have big inflatables to jump in and around. She had a lot of fun.

11.01.2008

I hope everyone had a great Halloween! We had a very fun time here. We went to Nana's and Papa's earlier in the day. After that we went to see Great-Grandma and Grandpa. Sammy "shed" all over their carpet. Silly puppy!! When I picked Ella up from preschool they had painted kitty cat whiskers on her, so she was also a kitty cat during the day too.

After dinner we went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. The original plan was to take both kids just around the block and then Sam and I would go home and hand out candy. We did that, but when we separated Sam started crying and was very sad. He wanted to keep trick-or-treating with Ella. So we headed back out and caught up to daddy and Ella. He was having so much fun. He walked all down the street too. Not very quickly, but walked a long ways none the less. Both kids got quite a good stash of candy, but I think Sam will have to wait until next year to eat that.

Ella was very cute, she would go up to the door and Sam and I would be a few steps behind and the person at the door would give her a piece of candy then she would turn around and put it in Sam's bag first. She was really good at sharing.

10.22.2008

If you had asked me a year ago if I would have a blog I would have said no. I am now on my 100th post of my blog. Funny huh? Although I don't really use this as a sounding board for my many thoughts; instead it's more of a family album of goings on. It's been quite a ride. I couldn't think of anything great for my 100th post, but I do have some cute pictures from the past few days that I thought I would post instead. Since you just want to see pictures of the kids anyways!

We went and picked pumpkins last weekend. The crop wasn't that great, but we found a few keepers. Here's our scarecrow...

Here's Sam sitting on his doggy. Like his cute race car sweater?

Ella had her Play Doh table out and Sam thought it would be fun to stand on. He would stand up and then stand there totally still until I came and got him. Then repeat...

These are the drawers that he always tries to open. He manages to get them open part way then pulls out anything he can. I like this picture because he's standing so cute looking at them as if willing them to open.

When he gets thirsty he goes over to the fridge and tries to pull the door open to get his cup. He learned this one pretty quickly. He will even get Ella to open it for him too.